Great apes should have the right to life and freedom, according to a resolution passed in the Spanish parliament, in what could become landmark legislation to enshrine human rights for chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and bonobos.

The environmental committee in the Spanish parliament has approved resolutions urging the country to comply with the Great Apes Project, founded in 1993, which argues that "non-human hominids" should enjoy the right to life, freedom and not to be tortured.

The project was started by the philosophers Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri, who argued that the ape is the closest genetic relative to humans – that it displays emotions such as love, fear, anxiety and jealousy – and should be protected by similar laws.

The resolutions have cross-party support and it is thought they will become law, meaning that potential experiments on apes in Spain will be banned within a year, according to a Reuters report.

"This is a historic day in the struggle for animal rights and in defence of our evolutionary comrades which will doubtless go down in the history of humanity," Pedro Pozas, the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project, said.

"We have no knowledge of great apes being used in experiments in Spain, but there is currently no law preventing that from happening.''

Using apes in circuses, television commercials or filming will also be banned and while housing apes in Spanish zoos, of which there are currently 315, will remain legal, supporters of the bill have said the conditions in which most of them live will need to improve substantially.

In 1999, scientists and lawyers petitioned New Zealand's parliament to pass a bill conferring "rights" on chimpanzees and other primates. The government gave the great apes something less than human rights, but also something more practical: legal protection from animal experimentation.

The first country to take such a decision was Britain: Home Office guidelines now forbid experiments on chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas.